


Cherry Wine

by SpookyMiscreant



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Abuse, Therapy, maternal abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 01:39:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11636265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpookyMiscreant/pseuds/SpookyMiscreant
Summary: Aaron goes to Bee to talk about his mother.Set to the tune of Cherry Wine by Hozier, though I specifically listened to the Overcoats cover for inspiration!





	Cherry Wine

“Let’s talk about your mother.”

The words sounded like a nuclear alarm siren as they circled through Aaron’s mind. Talk? About his mother? How could he verbally say things he couldn’t even think? How was he supposed to articulate the memories that were so filled of emotions that he knew were irrational?

“I don’t know where to start.” Aaron murmured lowly.

He’d started this session cautious but at least hopeful. He scheduled a private appointment with Dr. Dobson because he knew that the festering wound of his youth and his mother’s death was rotting him from the inside out. It tainted every thought, every word until he could only burn with a black rage that swallowed him whole. He’d turned into such a hateful man, always spitting angry words and swinging irate fists. That was not the man he wanted to be. That was not the man he was _supposed_ to be.

“Describe your mother in your own words. Describe to me how you saw her. Not how Andrew or the world saw her. I don’t want to hear about Tilda Minyard. I want to hear about Aaron’s mother.” Dr. Dobson spoke slowly, whether it was to emphasize her words or so as to not spook him he wasn’t sure.

Still, Aaron struggled for the proper words. He felt overwhelmed and raw, and more than a little uncomfortable with being in a room with a woman, who was staring at him so intently.

“How can I explain to you how cold her eyes were? Or the way she could use her words to freeze me solid? Or how I know deep down the endless rage and ever burning fire I feel inside comes from her? How she could switch from soft and loving to hard and hateful in the blink of an eye? Her hands could caress or bruise, and I spent every moment terrified of which one I’d experience. How I spent every day tip-toeing past her unconscious body, because I could never properly gauge what mood she’d be in when she woke up?” once he’d opened his mouth he couldn’t stop the words from pouring out, as if some great dam had broken inside of him.

 

_Her eyes and words are so icy_

_Oh but she burns_

_Like rum on the fire_

_Hot and fast and angry as she can be_

_I walk my days on a wire._

 

Aaron couldn’t meet Dr. Dobson’s eyes, or even her face for that matter. He kept his eyes down cast and waited for her to speak. And yet, after a beat or two the words were pushing past his lips again, he’d lost control and he couldn’t figure out how to gain it back. His thoughts had become a whirl wind of pain and fear, and yet in the midst of that dark were the warm memories of his mother’s blue finger nails, impeccably painted by his hand. There was his mother twinkle of a laugh, her dimples that both he and Andrew had inherited.

“She sang a lot. It was beautiful. She’d sing as she worked around the house, sometimes she’d sing me to sleep while her fingers ran through my hair. One day I’d accidently knocked over her grandmother’s porcelain dolls, and one broke. I’d cleaned it up the best I could, but there was no fixing the shattered face. I threw myself down next to the destroyed, priceless heirloom and cried for over an hour. I knew how much she loved her grandmother and how much those dolls meant to her. I knew she was going to lose it when she saw what I had done. And she did. I had stopped crying by the time she’d stumbled into the living room, but it didn’t matter. Her eyes narrowed onto that shattered doll and nothing else in the entire world mattered other than the fact that I had broken her doll. Her fingers slipped through my hair and squeezed, giving her an anchor to swing me around by. She’d slapped me and pulled my hair. She squeezed my arm so hard my fingers started to go numb as she screamed and screamed at me. When she was done she threw me onto the shattered porcelain doll and told me to clean it up, but the porcelain cut my arms, legs, and hands as I tried to stand. I was six and she’d never drawn blood before. I freaked out. Blood was gushing down every exposed inch of my body, there were shards stuck in my skin and mom was still mad at me. “

“Something about me crying, covered in blood made her stop screaming. It was like a switch had been flipped. She was no longer mad about the doll. She called me her baby boy as she cleaned he cuts and pulled the porcelain out of my skin. She cleaned the blood and wiped away my tears. I tried to tell her I was okay, it only looked bad. I couldn’t get the words to come out because my mom was petting me and humming, trying so hard to calm me down when she could’ve just left me there to clean up my mess. I really was fine. No stitches, just power ranger band aids.” Aaron chuckled, an odd tension releasing as he remembered her wordless melody that had wrapped around him.

 

_It looks ugly, but it's clean,_

_Oh momma, don't fuss over me._

 

“Aaron she should not reacted that way no matter how important the object was to her. You were a little boy, and accidents happen. You mentioned that this was the first time she’d drawn blood and that she expressed remorse for doing so, but you should not have been beaten at all. Do you understand that?” Dr. Dobson asked, Aaron imagines her face looks sad and full of pity luckily he still hasn’t looked at her face.

“Yes. Rationally and years later I understand that that is not the way a mother is supposed to treat her child. Don’t pity me Dr. Dobson. Nicky pities me enough as it is, I don’t need anyone else to.” Aaron barked a short, rueful laugh.

“She wasn’t a sadist, she did not like hurting me and she especially didn’t like drawing blood. She tried very hard not to after that incident. I know my mother had issues. According to Andrew and Nicky she was a drugged out, whorish monster that wasn’t worth the air she breathed. What the fuck do they know? She is my mom! She loves me! I don’t need everyone to tell me how awful she was, I was there. When she forgot to eat for days _I_ fed her. When I fell of my bike and hurt my knee _she_ was there with a first aid kit and kisses. I don’t have a dad. It’s always been she and me. Yes, she beat the holy fuck out of me, but I’m not an easy person to love. She took care of me. She loved me.” The words ripped out of him, first as an angry geyser, then as a slow stream as his anger waned and his pain returned.

 

_The way she tells me I'm hers and she is mine_

_Open hand or closed fist would be fine_

_The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine._

 

He didn’t give Dr. Dobson much of a chance to speak, fearful of the things she’d say, before he continued, “She knew I was sneaking her pills. I didn’t know how she got them, what it cost her when I took some. I just wanted to get away. Away from her fists, from her words, from her. She stormed into my room and snatched my headphones off my head not caring that she ripped out some of my hair with them. I didn’t even know what she was so upset about, I was too high to properly comprehend her sped up words. It wasn’t until I saw the little box she kept them in in her hands that I finally realized I’d been caught. That was when I heard how she got them. I’d always assumed she bought them from a dealer like on tv. She was fucking the dealer for them. I was so stupid, I should’ve known, we had never had the money to support an addiction of any kind much less an illegal one. She screamed something about not being able to get more until she could get him away from his wife. Suddenly through the drugged hazed anger washed over my entire body. My mom was fucking a _married_ man for drugs, and it was my fault she’d be having to see him more and more often. I stood up quickly and got dizzy before I do much else. It was enough though. She threw the empty box at my head, the corner sliced my jaw open. I had to get stitches.” He pointed to the scar that ran vertically down his sharp jawline.

 

_Calls of guilty thrown at me_

_All while she stains_

_The sheets of some other_

_Thrown at me so powerfully_

_Just like she throws with the arm of her brother._

 

“Do you think a part of you wanted her to catch you stealing her drugs? That made her anger was better than your isolation?” Dr. Dobson asked.

Aaron huffed a cold laugh as he nodded.

“It’s fucked up, Dr. Dobson. You’re right though. I wanted her to catch me and I wanted her to hit me. Her fire was always easier to withstand than her ice. It wasn’t until her addiction grew more serious that she started forgetting I was there. I missed my mom.” Aaron’s eyes prickled with tears as he remember the ghost she’d become long before she’d actually died.

 

_But I want it_

_It's a crime_

_That she's not around most of the time_.

 

“I missed the pancakes and raspberries. I missed her singing. I missed her words even if they had mostly been hateful. Sometimes if we were in public and a child was screaming or crying she’d lean down to tell me that I was better than that kid. It was one of the only times she ever praised me. She used to smile at me. She hasn’t done that since I was small, but I remember. It made the too hard squeezes and shoves worth it.” Aaron’s voice faded as he finished.

“Your dorm mates Andrew and Neil made pancakes and fruit this morning.” Betsy didn’t pose that interjection as a question, Aaron nodded anyways.

“Is that why you called me?” Aaron heard the implied “And why you’re so emotional” and nodded again.

“I-I have never told anyone about my mother. I just listen as they curse her for me, but I don’t hate her. I hate that I qualify for this fucking team. I hate that they’re always fighting. I hate Neil’s shitty remarks about everything. I hate Kevin and Neil’s devotion to Exy. I hate that my brother took away my mom. I hate that I don’t hate him for it. I hate my uncle. I hate that I am responsible for putting Nicky’s life on hold. I hate that I hurt him when I lash out. I hate so much and yet I don’t hate my mom. I can’t. She’s my _mom.”_ Aaron felt his anger filling his body until he thought of his mother, all he felt then was sorrow and loneliness.

 

_The way she shows me I'm hers and she is mine_

_Open hand or closed fist would be fine_

_Blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine._

“You talk about her anger and your own as if they are the same. Do you think you’re subconsciously using your anger as a way to connect to your memory of her? Using your peers’ and your own anger to rationalize her abuse?” the way Betsy posed the questions somehow stopped Aaron from panicking like he would’ve normally.

He could only nod as his entire world view shifted. Aaron’s mind ran through every time he had purposefully made someone angry. Every time he had said something shitty to Nicky waiting for the day Nicky hit him. He had a subconscious need to prove that in the end everyone abused someone and his mother’s actions hadn’t been nefarious, but had come from a place of love. Nicky still hadn’t hit him. Nicky never would and Aaron knew it.

“She loved me.” Was all Aaron could get out through his trembling lips and clenched teeth.

“You use her love as a shield against her abuse. You wrapped it around yourself to weather her fury and yet it has left you more wounded than her violence. Aaron, your mother loved you. She also abused you and that was not okay. These facts do not exist separately from each other, but they also do not exist _because_ of each other.” Besty’s voice had turned into a slightly pleading tone as if she was trying to get Aaron to finally make eye contact.

That wasn’t going to happen any time soon, not after she’d said exactly what he’d been needing to hear. Rationally Aaron had always known, but this was not something he could be rational about. His mind was racing as quickly as his breathing as he tried to reorganize his thoughts around that sentiment.

 

_Her fight and fury is fiery_

_Oh but she loves_

_Like sleep to the freezing_

_Sweet and right and merciful_

_I'm all but washed_

_In the tide of her breathing._

 

Aaron Minyard had never been as devoted to anything in his entire life as he was to his mother. She was his world, his everything. He thought of all the times he’d placed a pillow under her head and a blanket over her as she slept in haphazard places around their house. He thought of all the hugs, all the kisses, all the songs. He thought of all the slaps, all the shoves, all the beatings. Tilda Minyard was his mother and he loved her, but he also hated her. He could finally admit that to himself. Aaron hated his mother. Hated her for all the pain and neglect she put him through. All he’d ever done was love her. And he still did. Even with only her memory to haunt him, no longer her fists, he stilled loved her with his whole being.

 

_And it's worth it, it's divine_

_I have this some of the time._

 

His mother abused him. He inherited a lot from his mother; her hair, her songs, her anger, her addiction, her smile, her violence. Aaron could not change his mother, she was dead and gone. Aaron did not want to change his mother. His past was his past and though it was dark and painful it gave him a family he loved and a future he couldn’t have achieved on his own. Aaron couldn’t change his abusive mother, but he could change his abusive behavior. And he would. To spite his mother for every time she called him worthless. To honor his mother for every time she told him he was good and tussled his hair. But mostly, to love his family like his mother never could love him.

 

_The way she shows me I'm hers and she is mine_

_Open hand or closed fist would be fine_

_The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine._

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I am fragile and this hurt me to write. This work means a lot to me so please please please leave a comment of some kind, even if it's bad. 
> 
> Idk if anyone will notice but Aaron slips into present tense when he's emotional talking about Tilda. That's on purpose.   
> Also I head canon that Aaron has an aversion to adult females that isn't subtle at all Neil just didn't care to notice until he was being nosy when Randy came to visit. Because of this it is my opinion Aaron wouldn't call Betsy "Bee" like everyone else. Maybe in reference he'd call her Betsy or Bee but in person, in a sealed room, one on one he'd definitely use the most formal way to address her.


End file.
